cover image Accidentally Perfect

Accidentally Perfect

Marissa Clarke. Entangled Amara, $8.99 mass market (440p) ISBN 978-1-64937-189-8

Clarke (the Anderson Brothers series) gets the Hideaway Harbor series off to a soft start with this overly expositional outing, which weighs down its heroine with the dual responsibility of finding a happy ending and boosting her new hometown’s population to attract love connections for her friends in installments to come. Lillian Mahoney is the brains behind the massively successful Living Sharpe lifestyle brand, though handsome, lazy spokesperson Niles Sharpe gets all the credit. When a falling out with Niles threatens her professional future, she escapes to her sister’s vacation cottage in charming but dying Blink, Maine. Ridiculously, local boat builder Caleb Wright immediately suspects Lillian to be a gold-digging scammer, based solely on seeing her strike up a conversation with a sweet old man she has no way of knowing is the town’s wealthiest landowner. Caleb’s determined to catch her in her con, leading to several silly confrontations until Caleb (finally) realizes that Lillian is actually a bright, well-meaning woman determined to revitalize the town. With a little help from a blueberry pie contest and the Living Sharpe empire, Lillian may turn Blink into a vacation destination yet—albeit not without some amusing mishaps along the way. Though a bit light in its own right, this sets things up nicely for future series outings. (Mar.)